College Park parkrun #160 was special because it was the parkrun before Halloween. Thanks to everyone who showed up in costume!
As a pirate-wannabe, I am happy to report that if you add up all the miles that we have covered in our College Park parkruns, we have circumnavigated the globe, not once, but TWICE! That’s some mighty fine sailin’. Or runnin’.
The parkrunner who completed our second circumnavigation by finishing 104th, becoming the 16,030th finisher, came part way around the globe to join us. Lucy Parr visited this week from Yorkshire, England, together with mom Rebecca, dad Andrew, and brother George. The family normally does their parkrunning at Penistone parkrun. But for Lucy it was her first ever full 5K parkrun. Way to start out in style, Lucy!
I was hoping for 160 parkrunners on Saturday for our 160th parkrun - and I thought we had it, until the sorting of the tokens proved that we were ONE token short! If you have token #45, please bring it back. No questions asked! You will not have to walk the plank!
Saturday’s parkrun had many milestones to celebrate, so let’s just get to it!
We celebrated our biggest group yet of official milestones.
- 50-timers: Jim Cantwell, Sharlene Deskins, Neil Jograj, and Carly Mills
- 100-timer: Steve Feld
- 25th time volunteer: Cindy Feld
Steve and Cindy enjoyed their return to College Park. They first joined us on a rainy Christmas Eve in 2016. Steve was looking for a 5K race to complete his quest to do a race in every month, and found College Park parkrun. With miserable weather, it was our quietest day ever, with only 25 finishers. But Steve loved it! They kept coming back, becoming regular volunteers and team members. At the start of this year they moved to North Carolina to be closer to family. Now they’re regulars at Durham, NC parkrun. But they were happy to return to their “parkrun birthplace” for this milestone.
Jim and Carly both achieved the feat of setting a PB in their 50th parkrun. Nice!
Congratulations to the following people for reaching these unofficial parkrun milestones:
5-timers: Daniel Coile, Mariella McElhenny, Ed Pachico, Gwyneth McElhenny, and Theresa Catterton-Doherty
10-timers: Kathy McFalls, Louis Green, and William Grunow
25-timers: Brian Koen and Laurie Fisher
The parkrun bell didn’t stop ringing because of all the PBs!
It’s impressive to see 10-year old Violet finishing as 2nd female. She has come a LONG way since she started running with us in 2017.
Jessica Gerbig continues to get faster while pushing a stroller.
Kathy McFalls is making great progress — she has gone from high 40s to almost cracking 40 minutes.
Reese Madsen went from 41 to 38 minutes. Impressive!
Zoe Phillips — 2 minute PB. Dad can only dream of that!
Natasha Oliviera — quietly getting faster week by week. This was her 4th consecutive PB!
And Clarence Patterson has had 3 PB’s in three parkruns!
The things I like most about College Park parkrun, besides getting to wear my pirate hat, is the encouragement and camaraderie among friends and family. On Saturday, Chris Pruitt stormed around in 16-something. That’s pretty impressive, but what is really awesome is that his kids, Kara and Cole, finished their FIRST EVER 5K.
Whether you are finishing at the head of the pack, or finishing your 5K at your pace, getting out and having fun on the trail is what we’re all about.
Finally, I have to give a “shout-out” to all of the volunteers who helped on Saturday to make College Park parkrun #160 a huge success:
- Golf course marshals: Hump Plotts and Matt Green
- Turn around marshal: Lisa Wilson
- First Timers Briefing: Amy Duan - Amy had her hands full with 22 first timers! Wow!
- Timekeepers: Erin Munsell (congrats on your marathon!!), Clare Imholtz
- Finish Tokens: Cindy Feld
- Barcode Scanners: Larry Washington, Tomas Marambio, and Janet Tate
- Tail Walkers: Teresa Perdomo and Külli Crespin
- Finish Line Photography: Katie Hirsche
- Setup and Breakdown: Zoe Phillips
- Token Sorters: Cotter Rosenberg, Duane Rosenberg, Alex Dystant, and Andrew, George and Lucy Parr.
If you’d like to wear a yellow vest and lend a hand at a parkrun, please reach out and let us know.
We're looking forward now to November parkruns. There's a lot to look forward to, as November will be our first ever month with SIX parkruns: that's 5 Saturdays plus our special extra Thanksgiving morning parkrun.
Lori Dominick
